Dell doesn’t change platforms that often with their corporate customers, so when they do, it is a pretty big deal. The seven-year-old latitude D series will be phased out by the end of the year being replaced by the E series. Here’s why I will be ordering one as soon as possible:

• Dell Latitude ONTM. Sometimes when I am traveling with my laptop, I need to get something on the internet real quick, or I need to check my e-mail. I don’t necessarily need to wait for Windows to start up to do simple tasks. Latitude ON allows you to pretty much instantly boot into a simple operating system (Linux based) to access your e-mail, calendar, contacts, or browse the internet. Since it is not using your system’s main processor or hard drive, it dramatically improves battery life.
• Style. Some people say style shouldn’t matter for corporate computers, but when it comes to laptops, size and looks count. The new laptops are around 1 inch thin, and start out at around 2 lbs. This means you won’t feel inadequate sitting next to someone using a Macbook.
• Speed. The new laptops use faster DD3 memory, faster processors, and are available with the latest solid state disk drives (sorry, I had to use a little geek speak, I am talking about a computer after all.

I am holding out for the Latitude E4300 due to be released in the next few weeks. It is the smallest Latitude available that uses full-size laptop components.  This means you don’t have to sacrifice speed for size.

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